Can you feel my bones?
by Gloria Patri
Summary: What does it matter? she asked. I'm just another sack of bones to salt and burn and add to the list. But she was wrong even though she was right. Mild spoilers and maybe DeanxOC if you want. Rated T for swearing.


**Feel My Bones  
**_a Supernatural fanfic  
by Fye Kurokawa_

**Author's Note: **This was mostly inspired by a lucid dream I had when I went down for a nap. The song I listened to helped a lot: **Shiningray, **from the vocaloid **Hatsune Miku**. I know, it's such a weaboo song to listen to while writing for Supernatural, but it sort of fit, if you know the translation of the lyrics. Anyways, I hope you like this. :)

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_It was her dying wish. He knelt there crying over her body. She told him, shh, it's okay, I'll be fine, I'll be in a better place, but he knew all her sins. He knew she didn't want to die. She smiled, told him it's okay and fell into a deep kind of sleep you don't wake up from._

* * *

Some time in September.  
It's somewhere around one in the morning, but no one knows because no one bothers to look at the broken clock all crooked-like hanging on the wall at the back. No one bothers to look at non-existent watches either, because everyone's too preoccupied in foreplay, the current barfight or the pool game going on at the end of the room. The stools at the bar are mostly empty. So's the room. There's only about twenty people and most of them are burly men so drunk they wouldn't remember their names if anyone asked. There's a man sleeping at the bar. The bartender tried to wake him up a couple times but eventually gave up for the sake of having better things to do. He's probably in his mid-fourties and probably has a wife and two or three kids waiting for him at home, and it's actually pretty sad to see him passed out like that amidst a moderately small crowd. There's another man, considerably younger, in an expensive-looking suit and the keys to his porsche on the counter next to him and not once does he motion for them. His last shot was an hour ago but he's still waiting for the alcohol to leave his system. He's probably married and has a worried-sick wife waiting for him at home to tell him she's finally pregnant.

Then there's the girl.

It's fairly safe to assume she's not jailbait by the simple fact that she's neither dressed like a five dollar hooker and the fact that she's sitting in front of the bartender with a glass of what couldn't be anything but vodka. She takes a sip of it every ten minutes or so and never looks up from the dirty-looking glass. The ice in it never seems to melt and her face never seems to change. Sometimes her hair would catch in a breeze that doesn't seem to exist, or if it does, everyone's too caught up in their crude sweaty business to even remotely give a damn about a stupid little current of air. She takes her seventh sip of the night. Her glass lands on the counter with a tiny little "clunk" and she stays quiet and motionless for another ten minutes. Another sip. It's probably around two when he walks in, tired and beat up and he looks like he just went through Hell, came back to say what it was like, went back again and came back to say he'd killed the mother that tried to kill him the first time around.

It's the first time in a long time that she raises her head to look at the newcomer. Only two or three other people bother to acknowledge the opening door, all women, all in their late fourties, all looking for some fresh meat to hook up with. She gags a little in her mouth--the first real display of interest or emotion she's shown all night--and takes another sip of whatever kind of drink it is she's nursing.

Of course, she's the first one he notices.

He sits down next to her and asks for a beer. He waits the traditionnal fourty seven seconds before turning to her and devoting all his remaining energy and time to try and get her to be wrapped up in him.  
But he's taken back by how young she looks. He frowns. There's something awfully strange about her but he just can't put his finger on exactly what it is. Maybe it's the pungent smell of vanilla cigares mixed with the smell of vodka she seems to exude, or maybe it's the fact that she seems so lost in her own universe that she might as well be creating one for herself.

"Shouldn't you be at home or something?"

She doesn't even bat an eyelash. She continues to stare blankly at her glass of neverending vodka, twisting it in her hands and biting the inside of her cheek as though she's trying to hold back ages of untold words. He takes a good look at her--her torn jeans, her black lace-trimmed tanktop and shoes that look so old they couldn't be from another era than the eighties. She looks so plain, with her short, choppy brown hair and her dull, faded brown eyes that he can't even begin to fathom where his already obnoxious infatuation with her comes from. He has no idea why, but he can't help but keep talking.

"Don't you have school in the morning or something? Bet your parents'll be pissed to know you spent the night in this dump."

The bartender looks up for a second and glares at the man but quickly turns back to the beer mug he's holding and places it in front of the man none too gently. The foam spills over the top a bit and splashes against the counter. Something tells him that it won't make a difference if he wipes it away with a paper towel or not. The counter's already so far down the deep end that it's not worth making an effort to clean it.  
Again, the girl ignores him. The bartender give the man a strange look but turns around to ask an older woman to go pick up the mess that three men made around the pool table. The older woman shrugs and crushes the stub of her cigarette into the ashtray at the end of the counter before breaking up the silly little mock-fight the three loud, burly men had started. They hit on the poor woman in a disgustingly pathetic attempt to get into her pants but she slaps their too-free hands away from her and reprimands them by reminding them they have decent wives and okay jobs to get to in the morning and getting there with a black eye is no way to impress their boss into getting a promotion or a miserable raise on their miserable salary.

"How old are you?"

"I turned eighteen yesterday."

He almost jumps out of his skin when she talks. He hadn't expected her to answer at all and, in fact, he had already opened his mouth to string another question to the others that had gone unanswered.

"Shouldn't you be out doing something with your friend?" He asks, turning to his mug and pretending that he's not really all that interested in what she has to say but the truth is that he wishes he could wring the answer to the universe out of her, because she seems like just the type who would be able to spew that out.

"Gone on a field trip I couldn't afford. Couldn't hold them back after they paid for it." She takes another sip of her glass but keeps it at her mouth for a moment. She stares out into empty space for about three seconds before she lets the glass back down on the counter. "All of them left. Not one stayed. All gone, just like that, poof."

For a solid minute he looks at her like she's insane, and for a second he thinks about the look the bartender gave him and how similar they must be if they had to be compared. He brushes it off and turns around to face the girl again. She's still absorbed by her always-full glass of vodka.  
Her face seems to melt and reshape itself when she smiles unexpectedly, and he figures that his jaw must be on the floor right now. But for the sake of composure and by force of habit, he's not awed for too long and within half a second he's back to his flirtatious, obnoxious self again.

"I'm guessing you have a name?"

She nods but doesn't answer, and he mutters about how damn smart a chick she is. Her smile doesn't change but something passes through her eyes, something he catches but can't quite understand.

"I'm John." he lies, and the lie tugs at his lungs and heart and stomach because it's a name he hasn't said out loud since the day his father died and--oh god--the thought of it makes him want to vomit already. Why was that name the first thing he thought of anyways?

"It's rude to lie to a girl on the first date you know." she says, and though her face is practically cracking because of her smile her voice is so even and cold that even he can't ignore the goosebumps running up and down his arms. That is one creepy chick.

"Sorry honey, but I'm not the one lying." he answer without missing a beat and takes a long swig of beer. "Lying by omission's a sin. Not that you seem to be the type to care."

She scoffs and he feels sort of proud of obtain some kind of reaction from her. She turns her head to look at him and the pride evaporates almost instantly when he takes a look--a good, _hard_ look--at her face and her eyes. She looks like she could be straight out of an asylum, or a funeral, or a funeral _home_. Her eyes are red and puffy and stil a little wet just as though she'd been crying for hours on end until she turned around. But he hadn't seen her body shaking with choked sobs, not even a tear sliding down her face and splash against the counter. Her cheeks almost look swollen and there's a bruise blossoming on her jaw, right under a scar that reaches from her right ear halfway down her neck. It doesn't look like the bruise hurts too much--or if it does, she's not giving anything away--but it's just that it looks wrong on her. It just looks _wrong_.

"Jo, Jord, Jordan; take your pick, I don't really care." she says, and her voice is still even, unbroken and freakishly cold and for a second he swears he can actually see her breath.

But it's the name that knocks the wind out of him when images of a too-big explosion come rushing in front of his eyes. He tries to drown the image with beer and a shooter of--he doesn't even know what it is he just knows that it isn't working.

"Whatever it is, it wasn't your fault." she says quietly, and he's sure he heard some form of emotion in her voice. She tries her best at a reassuring smile but it really just looks as though she's going to bust out in tears again.

The girl turns back to her drink and takes another sip. He looks at her long and hard another time, baffled, amazed and a lot more freaked out than he had thought he'd ever be around a girl. She twists her glass in her hands before her right hand comes up to tuck her hair behind her ear. The bruise seems even more brutal now, in crude contrast with the silvery-white hue of the obnoxiously large scar and the sickly pale, near-transparent skin of her neck.  
The door's hinges nearly howl as someone else enters the near-run-down bar. He instinctively turns around to look at the newcomer and his hand automatically reaches for his gun but goes back to rest on the mug's handle when he realises that it's just his brother.

"Dean, what the hell? I've been looking for you all over the damn place!" the other man yells, but his voice is only barely louder than the constant noise in the bar. The first man shrugs and turns around completely to face his brother. He lets himself lean back against the counter, one arm propped up against it while his beer mug rests in his other hand.

"Can't help it Sammy. A man's got his needs." he says and gives his younger brother his classic, cheeky smirk. "And besides, I had the greatest company."

But when he turns around the girl isn't there and her glass is gone too and the smell of vanilla cigares and vodka seemes to have vanished altogether. His hand reaches for his gun again but he doesn't take it out. He stands up in a flash and looks around the bar. Everyone's busy with foreplay, the now resolved barfight and the pool game still going on at the end of the room. But the girl isn't anywhere, and he knows because that small little frame can fit anywhere but it's remarkable enough for him to see her in a crowd of machistic, dirty men.  
He turns around again to face the bartender, completely ignoring his little brother's incessant questionning--seriously, can't he ever just shut up and let him do what he damn wants?--but something else catches his eye and this time it's not the waiter's perplexed look. It's the picture frame that's hanging right next to the picture of the bar's first owner.

The girl's in torn jeans and black lace-trimmed tanktop and shoes that look so old even he can tell that they were made before he was born. Her smile's priceless and it even reaches her eyes--it's a real kind of smile. Her hair's shining in the summer sun and she's laughing so hard he can see the tears forming at the corners of her eyes.

"You don't have to ask him about it."

And there she is again, sitting in the exact same spot she'd been sitting in with the exact same glass she'd been nursing before Sam came barging in practically foaming at the mouth. She lets out a dark chuckle and somewhere in the background he can hear his brother asking him what the hell's wrong with him. He raises his hand to shut his brother up but doesn't really pay attention to anything else but the girl.

"I've been dead for over a year, Dean." she says, her voice even, but containing so much emotion that even he manages to get a headache from it. He can just barely ignore the fact that she knows his name. After all, she could've heard Sam say it for all he knows. "I died the morning two days after my eighteenth. Got into a fight with some jerks from school, came here to cool down, caught up with them again in an alley I use as a shortcut to get home."

She takes another sip of her glass of vodka but this time it actually looks like it's losing some of its contents. She sighs and for some reason he sighs too, letting out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding for so long.

"And you couldn't tell me this before _why_?" he asks, a little too upset, he knows, but he can't help it for some reason. The anger just comes naturally.

"You're a good hunter."

She pulls down the left strap of her tanktop to reveal a flame-circled pentagram, tattooed right under her clavicle, and it doesn't look anything new. His best guess is that she'd been forced to get that thing printed into her skin as a kid.

"What difference does it make? I'm just another sack of bones to salt and burn and add to the list." she says, and this time he can see the tears rolling down her cheeks. He can still hear Sammy, feel him pulling at his arms but he tells him the _shut the_ _fuck_ up because there's a ghost sitting right _there_ and if he doesn't shut up he's gonna tear him a new one. Sam shuts up. Says he'll wait in the car. Leaves.

She takes another sip. Not much vodka left. The ice melted away hours ago--but wasn't it all there just before Sam came in?

"Thanks, Dean." she whispers and finishes what's left of her glass of vodka. She gently puts it back on the counter, reaches into her pocket to leave a twenty and gets up. Dean stands there, dumbfounded and at a complete loss for words. The bartender's bulging eyes are lost on him. The girl takes a step and a half forward and drops a too-warm--practically scorching--kiss on his cheek.

"I'll tell your dad you're sorry if you tell mine I am too." she says with a light smile before turning around and walking out the door. It takes him a second to realise she walked away but by the time he slams the door open, the girl's gone, even though she couldn't have made it past the small porch by the time he made it to the door.

He runs back to the bartender and just as he's about to leave after slamming down a twenty of his own, he stares at the picture frame so hard it's like he's drying to drill holes into it. Without even asking, he leans over the small counter and pulls on the piece of paper that hung unceremoniously behind the picture frame. He scoffs, tucks the note in his jacket and leaves the whorehouse bar.

He stares at the place as it disappears in the rearview mirror while he explains the entire situation to Sam and for a second, the smell of vanilla cigares wafts through the old Chevy. By the time he can find the words to ask his brother if he smells it, it's gone, and when Sam asks what's wrong he just turns on the radio to listen to AC/DC.

Just another sack of bones that burnt itself in the crossfire.

* * *

_I'm not too good with this whole emotional thing. I never know what's too much and what's not enough. And the whole run-on sentence thing is a stylistic trait; it's meant to be that way. I know it can get confusing at times and if you think a certain sentence could use some reworking, please don't hesitate to say so. :)_

_Reviews are always loved, even if it's just to say hi!_


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